


play pretend, until

by spideywhiteys



Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [59]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Gen, Implied Sasusaku - Freeform, M/M, Multiple Pov, No Dialogue, Potential Romance, Pre-Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stream of Consciousness, more like just two, naruto mainly and then a bit of sasuke, they don't actually meet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideywhiteys/pseuds/spideywhiteys
Summary: Naruto has a word, the way all people have words because all people have soulmates. He's only ever wanted to be loved, and the promise of a perfect, eternal partner should excite him.Naruto has a word, and sometimes he wishes he didn't.
Relationships: Juugo & Uzumaki Naruto, Juugo/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [59]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086938
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	play pretend, until

**Author's Note:**

> Day 59: Soulmate AU / Jugo + Naruto

Is there a difference between monsters and monstrous men?

Naruto doesn’t know. He knows people can be monstrous, but when does it cross the line? Does it all mean the same thing? He gets confused sometimes, you see, because in his gut is a monster and on his flesh is another. 

Soulmates are tricky, funny little quirks of life. Stories of happy endings or pretty romances are for civilians. The shinobi world is a place where you are expected to slit the throat of your own soulmate if they’re on the other side. If they are your mission. 

Because the mission comes first. The  _ village _ comes first, and it’s like that across every nation.

Soulmates are words in ink any color under the sun pressed into your skin. Winding around and around flesh or printed like block letters. It’s not a name, and thank goodness for that, because sometimes knowing a name is the worst thing of all. It’s a word, or a few words, or sometimes even an entire sentence, depicting the innermost thought or feeling that your soulmate relates to. Something so wholly  _ them _ that there can be no doubt as to who it is.

On Naruto’s arm, in big, winding black that’s sometimes too beautiful to look at, sits the word  _ Monster. _

* * *

Sometimes it’s better to pretend he doesn’t have a soulmate at all. It’s what most shinobi do, too afraid to think upon it because of what it might inevitably lead them to. Naruto’s heart is too soft and wide and  _ red _ for that, desperation in every atom of the throbbing muscle. 

Sometimes he curls in his bed and thinks it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s fine if his soulmate is a monster, because at least they’ll be his.

Sometimes he hopes his words will change — because they do that. Change. It always reflects the word most like the person it’s meant for. And people change and morph into different people all the time. It’s part of growing up, it’s part of learning and adapting. No one expects the first word that graces their skin to be the one to last.

Naruto’s has never changed.

* * *

He doesn’t take his jacket off often because the script on his arm is eye-catching against the warm, cinnamon tan of his skin. The only way it could be more noticeable was if it were inked in sheer, glittering white, the way Shikamaru’s is. 

He doesn’t take his jacket off even though Sasuke wears short sleeves, the end of the Uchiha’s rose red  _ Wanting _ just visible at the end of his arm guards, by the curve of his pale, bare elbow. Sakura is prideful in the way she wears a sleeveless Qipao to show off the wine red, borderline purple  _ Avenger _ seared into her arm like a still-healing brand.

He’s watched them a lot, because they’re confirmed soulmates and also his teammates. He knows that Sakura is insecure about the fact that her word is  _ Wanting, _ and that she’s glad Sasuke covers most of it — intentionally or not. He knows that  _ Wanting _ isn’t such a bad word. It fits her, even; just as it’s supposed to. She wants to be more. She wants Sasuke. She wants love, returned. She wants to be strong and reliable. Humans are filled with wants, and Naruto thinks that without that greed, Sakura wouldn’t be as patient as she is with Sasuke. She knows what she wants, and she will wait millennia for it.

He’s envious.

* * *

Kakashi never shows his arms. He always wears long sleeves, fishnet underneath, and gloves that stretch to his knuckles. He bundles up with no regard for the weather, and he looks tired and his hair is always a mess. Naruto doesn’t think anyone is taking care of him, and in a terrible way he feels a silent kinship with his sensei. Because they’re both barely getting by on their own.

Maybe Kakashi doesn’t have a soulmate, or maybe he does.

Naruto never asks, because Naruto doesn’t want to be asked about his own. It is the one and only subject he is ever a coward in — and a coward he is, because he can leap into anything, into everything, but he can’t stand to look at the brand on his arm that means nothing and everything. 

_ Monster _ is all Naruto has ever known of himself.

* * *

Naruto goes with Jiraiya and Jiraiya doesn’t ask but he certainly sees. His dark eyes linger on the way the word  _ Monster _ curls around Naruto’s arm like a vine, still the most lovely script he’s ever seen. It’s such a conundrum, to have a sight so beautiful spell a word so terrible.

Naruto pretends he doesn’t care, pretends he doesn’t have a soulmate at all. It’s the shinobi way, even if he’s never liked it, and he is a shinobi.

Jiraiya looks and watches but never asks.

Maybe he should have.

* * *

Sasuke breaks Jugo from his prison and all he can see is a word.

The hair, orange and gleaming like the blinding rays of a sunset over water; the eyes, grim and kind, amber brown with slips of gold in direct light. The heart, open and bleeding and desperate to be good in a world that has refused him.

The word.

Curled around his bare arm like a sleeping animal, glittering, gleaming white. Screaming to be seen. Written in a frantic, excitable manner. It’s so obvious. So perfect, when Sasuke considers it, when he lets himself even wonder — even remember those days and the orange jumpsuits, orange like Jugo’s hair, burdened kindness like Jugo’s eyes.

Sasuke looks away from the word and does not think about it. Does not think about the  _ Resolute _ that stains his skin where  _ Wanting _ had once been. Yet he can’t help his thoughts, the same way he couldn’t help but stop from killing Naruto back then. Uchiha’s run on their hearts, and his heart is weary and bursting, ripped at the seams to fuel him.

_ Indomitable. _

And  _ Oh, _ is all Sasuke can think.  _ It suits him. _


End file.
